Memories flood my mind as I sit on the front porch. Perhaps it is the taste of buttermilk, the smell of cornbread baking in Grandma Minnie's Dutch oven over the fireplace, or the sorghum syrup Granddaddy Bob made each fall from cane.
The family rose before the rooster crowed to tackle the hot, hard, job of stripping blades from cane. After cutting them down, you put the cane into piles and cut off the seed heads. Then Granddaddy and the boys loaded the cane on a wagon and hauled it to the mill. A mule pulled the pole that turned the mill. Cane was fed into the vertical rollers like a washing machine. Juice squeezed from the cane and flowed down a spout to the boiler where it was boiled from one vat to another. You skimmed foam off the top until it came out a nice clear brownish-red color. Dozens of yellow jackets swarmed and you had to keep them out of the syrup. Our family made 90 gallons of sorghum syrup. The labor paid off when you savored the rich, thick, sorghum on hot, buttered biscuits.
Besides making sorghum syrup, Great-Grandpa Dallas Matheson owned 300 acres of land on Shewbird Mountain. He was a farmer and grew an apple orchard above the frost line. He raised the black beauty that was so red it looked black. The Ben Davis was light with small streaks and white inside. Other apples included the horse apple, hog sweet, red June, striped May, pumpkin apple, queen pippin, pound apple, and others with no names. Each fall our family took a sled and mule to Shewbird Mountain and hauled apples to the house to store them in the cellar. Grandma and the girls dried apples on trays outside in the sun.
I ponder the good old days on the front porch. We had no air-conditioners and it was a taste of heaven resting on the porch each evening as a breeze wafted over the valley. Neighbors would stop for a visit and we enjoyed swapping a few stories as lightning bugs flashed. Brother Harold and I caught them in Blair canning jars and pretended they were our lanterns.
Many homes have no front porches now. Families are missing a wonderful slice of the bygone days.
by: Brenda Kay Ledford
Reprinted from: GOOD OLD DAYS, A Poetry and Prose Anthology
Published by: Old Mountain Press: www.OldMountainPress.com
5 comments:
What wonderful memories. I had never heard of any of those apple varieties but am sure they were all great since they were home grown. I use to catch fireflies each evening at my grammas and put them in a Ball jar and watched them at the side of the bed. Let them go in the morning and do it again every time I was at her house. Yes porches were a way of communicating with neighbors...and the newer homes dont have them it seem. Such a shame. Janice
My grandparents, who lived on a red gravel road on two hundred acres, had a wooden porch swing hung on chains. I spent many a happy hour sitting and swinging, reading, talking, watching the road for the mailman.
Thank you for the memories.
Beautiful memories you have shared. I agree, front porches missing, and neighbors interacting are things that this world really needs again! Many blessings to you!
Brenda I hope you are well! I just loved this piece! Would you allow me to use it as a guest post on Blind Pig & The Acorn? You can email me at blindpigandtheacorn@gmail.com if you need to.
You are so right in saying that there is nothing like front porch sitting, Kay, and we miss our VA porch. We would sit outdoors most days, especially in the evening until the skeeters attacked; rainy day porch sitting was the best.
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